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It's a bird, it's a plane, it's...The King?

On June 28, Superman Returns opened in theaters
nationwide. In its first week, the movie grossed over 100 million
dollars, and of course, Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch gave their
review of the movie on WWE.com Unlimited. But Cade & Murdoch
aren’t the only RAW Superstars enamored with the man who’s
“faster than a speeding bullet.”

RAW’s color commentator, Jerry “The King” Lawler, is a
HUGE Superman buff. How much does he like Superman? Well, when I sat down
to talk with King about it, he was wearing a Superman watch, shirt and
ring. Those are just three of the items Lawler has in what he calls a
“huge collection of Superman stuff.” In fact, Superman has been
a favorite of Lawler’s since he was a young boy.

“I’ve had this Superman connection that has been with me since
five years old. It all goes back to the fact that I have this artistic
ability; the first thing I can remember drawing when I was five years old
was cartoons of Superman,” Lawler told me. “I drew all through
school when I should have been doing homework or school work instead.
The teacher would always catch me drawing Superman.”

That love has only grown over the years, and now Lawler has a home full of
Superman memorabilia.

“I’ve got almost everything that you can think of with Superman
on it,” he laughed. “I must have fifteen different Superman
watches, different jewelry, cufflinks, rings and shirts. I also have all
sorts of collectable things from cookie jars to these fancy lava lamps. I
probably have a couple hundred different items.”

As a youngster, Lawler’s love of Superman (and the artistic ability
he honed as a result) made him want to become a commercial artist. He even
went to the University of Memphis on a commercial art scholarship, but his
ambition would actually open the door to a different path.

“My goal was to work for DC Comics as a comic book artist,” he
recalled. “So I did some caricatures of wrestlers and sent them into
a local TV station that was airing Memphis wrestling; they showed some of
my drawings on TV and some of the wrestlers saw them. They invited me over
and that was the first time I got to meet professional wrestlers in person;
of course that’s when my interest went in that direction.”

So in essence, it was his artistic ability that led to him becoming a
professional wrestler. “I credit the artwork to actually getting
me in to meet the wrestlers. One in particular, Jackie Fargo, wanted me to
do some artwork and some caricatures of him; actually getting to be around
him is how I got my foot in the door in wrestling,” Lawler told me.
“Still, when I go back it all goes back to me loving and drawing
Superman. So anytime anything connected to Superman came about I would try
to collect it or get it. I’ve collected Superman comics from the time
I was five years old, and I still have those.”

And of course, being somewhat famous means that
people find out about your talents and ambitions. For “The
King,” it made one of his dreams come true.

“One of the highlights of my career and my life was getting to tour
DC Comics headquarters in New York City and meeting guys like (DC staffer)
Stuart Schreck,” he said. “Some of them turned out to be huge
WWE fans, and I got to invite those guys to come over and view a show at
Madison Square Garden. They even gave me this ring that I’m wearing
when I did the tour of DC Comics.”

During that tour, “The King” found out that DC had given his
RAW broadcast partner a little love as well.

“They dug out a cover of an old Superman comic and explained how they
came up with it,” he recalled. “When the cover is ready, the
last thing they’ll do is title the story; they all sit around a big
boardroom table where they look at the cover art and the story and they try
to come up with the title. Stuart Schreck was telling me that one day they
were sitting there and the cover was this big villain punching Superman; as
his fist was going past Superman’s face, it was distorted and spit
was coming out of Superman’s mouth and everything. Schreck said
‘what about what Jim Ross says on RAW? What about
slobberknocker?’ Sure enough, he comes out and shows me the comic
book and there it was right across the bottom: slobberknocker.”

“The King” has also been lucky enough to work with some of the
people who portrayed his favorite heroes and villains on the small screen.

“I’ve had the pleasure of doing two
different film conventions with Noel Neil, who was the original Lois
Lane in the old Superman television show,” he beamed.
“She’s also in Superman Returns; she’s in the very
first part of the first scene, signing over her fortune to Lex Luthor on
her death bed. Just a couple weeks ago I did a film festival with her
down in Memphis and I’m lucky to have some pictures of
that.”

So speaking of the new movie, how does Lawler feel Superman Returns stacks
up against Christopher Reeve and the old-school “Man of Steel?”

“Well, when I look back on the old shows now, they’re very
campy; and of course the special effects are nothing like you have in the
movies nowadays,” Lawler told me. “I was and still am a really
a huge fan of those shows as well as the Christopher Reeve Superman. The
movies seemed to go downhill as they went along, so I was anxiously
awaiting the new Superman movie.”

Going in however, Lawler had a few doubts.

“I got a little apprehensive because I’m not a big fan of
changing history,” he said. “I saw that just some young female
Hollywood designer changed Superman’s colors because red, yellow and
blue just weren’t “in” colors anymore so she decided to
change them. Whether it’s “in” or not, red, yellow and
blue were his colors, you know? This costume looks sort of like a guy
wearing a Speedo rather than what I was used to seeing Superman wear. There
was also no logo on the back of the cape; those are just some of the
differences that I was a little bit worried about.”

But the question is…did he enjoy the flick? The answer is yes, but
of course there are some things that “The King” didn’t
enjoy.

“I enjoyed the movie simply because it was Superman,” he
laughed. “There were a few things in there once again rewriting
history. I wasn’t too crazy about the fact that all of a sudden
Superman has a five year old son, and for some reason I wasn’t too
crazy about the way the actress portrayed Lois Lane. It was good, but it
was long; ordinarily I wouldn’t think I would be waiting around for a
Superman movie to be over, but this one was like two and a half hours so it
seemed a bit long. Overall the movie was good but I was hoping it would be
super.”

The Rock once played Clark Kent in a sketch on Saturday Night Live; so if
the opportunity arose, would Lawler want to become the next WWE Superstar
to become part of the tradition?

“I would be faster than a speeding bullet trying to get the
part,” he laughed. “I would love to be involved in something
like that; I don’t know anybody that wouldn’t. I’m just
hoping that after this there would be another sequel. I think they’ve
set it up, so we’ll see what happens.”

And if there is, Lawler will be there to see it, because there is certainly
no kryptonite powerful enough to break the bond he has with the “Man
of Steel.”